A cable network typically comprises an edge network that couples customer devices to a public network, such as the Internet, via coaxial or other cable. The cable network typically includes a network device referred to as a Cable Modem Termination System (CMTS) to facilitate this access via the coaxial cable. Coupled to one end of the coaxial cable, the CMTS usually resides in a Head-end and manages cable modems (CMs) coupled to the opposite end of the coaxial cable that reside within the customer's premises. Both the CMTS and the CMs convert data, usually received in packet form, into Radio Frequency (RF) signals for delivery over the coaxial cable, whereupon at either end of the coaxial cable, the CMTS or CMs reconvert the RF signal back into the data packets.
The customers may couple various devices to the CM, which originate the data packets for delivery upstream from the CM to the CMTS via the coaxial cable. In this manner, the customer devices may interface with the public network via the cable network to download and/or upload data or content. The customer devices, which may be referred to herein as Customer Premises Equipment (CPE), may include, to provide a few examples, telephones, routers, switches, residential gateways, set-top boxes, fixed mobile convergence products, home networking adaptors and internet access gateways.
Usually, each customer subscribes to and pays for, as part of the cable data service, a particular level of service, such as a set amount of bandwidth. To provide this level of service, the CMTS may provide, in accordance with a standard referred to as Data Over Cable System Interface Specification (DOCSIS), all subscriber or customer management functions by which to register CMs for operation within the cable network at the corresponding purchased level of service. These customer management functions may include maintaining CM service profiles for each CM that indicate, in part, the level of service provided to traffic originating from a corresponding CM. The CMTS may therefore be considered to “own” this customer management functionality in that typically no other device in a cable access network that is aware of individual customers.
As a result of being the only network device that is aware of individual customers, the CMTS may be adapted to provide new or emerging services that depend on subscriber or customer awareness. Typically, the CMTS cannot be upgraded to provide these new customer aware services and the cable network operations have to replace the currently deployed CMTS and/or CMs with a CMTS and/or CMs that support these new services. Having to replace the currently deployed CMTS and/or CMs in order to deploy these new customer aware services is typically expensive, requiring a large capital expenditure (CAPEX). Due to the expense, deployment of these customer aware services may be slow, potentially hampering customer satisfaction in that competing types of access networks may more readily deploy these types of services.